


What You Can Do In Three Hours

by oneatatime



Category: Kamen Rider Fourze, Kamen Rider Wizard
Genre: Canon Divergence, Multi, others appear too but not much, spoilers for both shows and for Ultimatum
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-03
Updated: 2019-01-03
Packaged: 2019-10-03 06:02:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17278457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oneatatime/pseuds/oneatatime
Summary: Kengo says he's not a miracle worker."Bullshit," says Gentarou.





	What You Can Do In Three Hours

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CurryJolokia (capra)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/capra/gifts).



It wasn’t that Kousuke thought he couldn’t cope. It wasn’t that he thought that _Haruto_ couldn’t cope. Haruto was tough, after all. 

But he’d seen the way the guy responded any time someone mentioned Amanogowa High, and he knew something needed doing. No point in going after the kid right now. The kid was fine, from everything Kousuke knew about what’d happened last year! Damn good fighter, with his friends. But what Haruto needed was the adult (and also to not get thrown in jail). 

He had a fair amount of money saved up, so he wrote a letter, and found himself standing outside Lion Lawyers, not far from the temple. Seemed appropriate. He went in with a bright smile and a lot of. . . hope. 

* * * 

Gentarou flapped the letter in his hand. Kengo raised an eyebrow at him as he swivelled in his office chair. “I’m not reading any more love letters,” he said dryly. 

“It’s not for you. It’s for me! From Kousuke!” 

Kengo’s other eyebrow went up. It wasn’t that he gave a damn if Gentarou had entanglements elsewhere. They both did; it was fine. But –

“Who?” 

“Haruto’s friend. Beast. I haven’t met him.” 

This was nearly as confusing as most conversations with Gentarou. “And yet he’s still in love with you?” 

Gentarou wailed, “Just read it! Please!” 

Kengo slid the crumpled page out of the envelope and read the damn thing. He read it again. Then he flattened it on the desk next to him and rubbed that spot just between his eyes. “I’m not actually a miracle worker, Gentarou.” 

“Bullshit. You totally are.” 

“Time travel is complicated!” 

“But with the power of friendship and space. . .” Gentarou prompted hopefully. 

“. . .give me a month.” 

It took him three weeks, which meant that three weeks also passed for Kousuke and Haruto. The equations were simpler that way. 

* * *

The first time, the portal opened at the front door just as Haruto was about to step through. It hadn’t been a good day, but no one had died yet, so that was good enough, right? He’d had to set the bar lower and lower and lower in the last few years. . . 

The space between the doorframe shimmered into life, turning a pearly, opalescent grey. 

_FLAME, PLEASE_

“Oi, none of that! It’s me!” 

Haruto paused mid-henshin. It was possible, he supposed. Weirder things had come to life, such as Nitou. “Uh, hello? Door?” 

A snort. “Me! Kisaragi Gentarou! Fourze!” 

No. No, it couldn’t be. Surely. “You don’t _look_ like you,” Haruto said mildly. “You look like my front door.” 

“Gimme a second. . .”

There was a loud PLOP and then a man fell out. He sprawled face down on the wooden floor, groaning like his whole body ached. He wore a short suit jacket with long pants over skinny legs, and black sneakers with red flames on the sides. He was rubbing his head, disturbing his – his _pompadour_. 

Haruto went down to a crouch next to him, feeling the smile blossom into life on his face. This man. This one he would never quite understand, but whose energy was infectious, nearly as infectious as his smile. “Gentarou.” 

Gentarou flopped over onto his back. He looked a little green at the temples, but his eyes both settled on Haruto’s face eventually, and then there was that grin. “Hey. Kengo said it’d take a while to map out the facetime actors so I wouldn’t land on my ass halfway through a tree or something. I knew he’d get it right though, so I came!” 

“Time-space factors and you were VERY LUCKY!” the portal grumbled. “You have three hours!” 

It winked out. 

Gentarou sprang to his feet as Haruto stood, and then Gentarou put a hand to his head and flailed, falling into Haruto’s surprised arms. 

He realised it wasn’t entirely a fall, though, when Gen’s arms came up around him and he hugged him fiercely. 

* * * 

“Better not stay outside for long,” Gentarou said quietly. 

“Because your other self might see you? Because you might alter the timeline?” 

“Nah, ‘cos it’s cold,” he grinned. “I can’t come all the way back here to give you a couple hours relaxing time and then get you sick. That’d be kinda unfair. I’ll go drop in on other me later, see how he’s doing.” 

Haruto reflected on the thought that Gentarou had probably known exactly what he’d assume. The other man had the silliest ways of playing, sometimes. Not that it was possible to prove it! He smiled shyly in return, and didn’t object when Gen presented him with a hot chocolate from a street stall. He wrapped his fingers around the cardboard cup, enjoying the warmth.

* * *

They did find, though, that what Gentarou could actually affect was deeply limited. He could talk to people. He could fight grunts, with or without the new Fourze Driver. He could fight Phantoms, and really effectively, too! But for any of them to actually stay down, Haruto or Nitou had to do it. Haruto could do more in the future than Gen could do in the past. 

Kengo said something complicated about adhesion effects and balls on rubber sheets. Gentarou said something about how things want to stay how they are, and Kengo gave him a tired look and then threw up his hands. Close enough, in other words. 

* * *

Somehow, one of them always knew.

Oh, not every single time he felt a bit down. But any time something more drearily draining happened to him, he’d either have Nitou or Gen on his doorstep within 24 hours. Not always literally – 

(Nitou looked startled to see him at his own bedroom window, for some reason, and Haruto wondered what he’d thought was going to happen. Where else would he be at this time of night? Or was Nitou expecting Anpanman to show up? 

Nitou said cheerfully, “Lemme in, it’s cold!” 

Haruto wasn’t a monster, so he wrestled with the window catch and helped Nitou over the sill before the trellis collapsed completely under the other man’s weight. He helped him brush the first tiny snow crystals from his hair. He helped him stow his giant bag in the corner. 

He was even less of a monster when he acceded to Nitou’s hopeful eyebrows as he sat on the red-brown quilt on Haruto’s bed. It was purely expedience, right? It’d take a while to make up a futon for Nitou, and there was enough room in the bed. Nitou’s hopeful eyebrows needed to be registered as a weapon. Wasn’t like he’d expected to be able to sleep anyway.

. . .except somehow, when he slid into bed and Nitou slid in behind him with absolutely no regard for his personal space, he felt suddenly comfortable and exhausted. To his surprise, he was able to drift off.) 

\- but often literally. 

It was strange, not feeling alone. 

* * *

Koyomi made a politely enquiring face, and Wajima mirrored it on the left. 

“Oh, this guy? This guy?” Nitou asked grandly. “This is Haruto’s boyfriend!” 

“ _Nitou,_ ” Haruto gasped, but on Nitou’s other side Gentarou pumped a delighted fist in the air then ran his palm through his hair, making it squeak. He caught Haruto’s eye and _grinned_ a grin that was enormously powerful but also really subtle. Soft and kind. Haruto knew somehow that if he had to tell Gen that they weren’t boyfriends, it’d be okay.

. . . he didn’t want to tell him that they weren’t boyfriends. 

“And this is Haruto’s other boyfriend,” Gen said helpfully, making finger guns at Nitou.

Nitou laughed. “How about it?” he whispered in Haruto’s ear.

Haruto nodded helplessly, feeling his face flame. He was even less in control of his life than usual. But for once it was in a good way.

They both liked him. 

And it wasn’t about what he could do for them. He didn’t have to worry about it being purely misplaced gratitude. Yeah, he’d helped both of them, he’d supported both of them through various worries, he’d listened, he’d talked – but they’d helped him, too. They saw him as a person, not a function. 

It wasn’t that people like Rinko-chan, or Shunpei, or Wajima, or Koyomi-chan, didn’t see him as a person. They were all good to him, all teased him, all appreciated him. But they – not their fault – interacted with him mainly in his capacity as Wizard. (Or he kept closing himself off to anything else. One or the other.) 

It was different with his two idiots, he thought, watching Gentarou patiently take a willing Koyomi through the friendship handshake. (His! _His!_ ) 

* * *

He got to meet Kengo. Miu, Yuuki, and the rest. He liked being in the future with Gentarou. It all felt like everything was at a remove, like he could relax, he didn’t need to have the whole universe butting up against him and needing attention. 

The three hour limit remained mostly, but they were able to stretch it a little here and there. Sometimes to six or seven hours. Kengo got better at holding the portal open but quiescent, so random strangers wouldn’t actually see it or fall through. 

The main problem was that time still passed in the other place. Communication was not impossible, but was difficult, so sometimes Haruto had to move his behind to get back to help Nitou with a Phantom, or sometimes Gen had to call up Nadeshiko or Ryuusei to take care of whatever horrible thing they were facing in their time period. Sometimes a red and blue Kamen Rider came and fought, so they weren’t needed. There was also a bright pink one that was around now and then, and a small pink and yellow one. 

He waited outside to pick up Gen after class one day, and got into an impromptu game of soccer with a few of the kids. When he looked up at his opponent and realised it was Gen, yelling Haruto’s name gleefully as he dribbled the ball past Haruto, he thought to himself that he’d never seen such wild appreciation in the other man’s face. 

* * *

Okay, so sometimes it wasn’t them coming to him.

When he lost his powers? Nitou practically kicked him into the corner of his bedroom, and with a sickening lurch Haruto fell through the portal he hadn’t seen.

He was caught by strong arms, and by a soft voice, and by gentle lips pressed against his hair. 

And sometimes it wasn’t anything like that at all. 

Yuuki operated the portal, and came with him. Haruto brought Gentarou coffee, and sandwiches, and sat with them both at Kengo’s bedside. 

“Drunk driver,” Gentarou said tearfully. Kengo’s eyes were closed, and the side of his face was horrifically swollen. Red and purple and black. Tiny stitches covered where he’d had his cheekbone repaired. Kengo would live, and he’d heal, and he’d be all right.

That didn’t make this any less awful.

Haruto reached for Gentarou’s hand. Yuuki smoothed Kengo’s hair, kissed his forehead, then sat back down on Gentarou’s other side to take his other hand. Ignoring the tears that ran ceaselessly down her face. 

* * *

And when – when it was all over, when Koyomi-chan was gone, at the end?

He couldn’t cope with Nitou’s aching empathy, and he couldn’t handle Gentarou’s quiet touch. So he left with Koyomi, and they said goodbye. 

But there was communication. On the days he couldn’t handle talking, there’d be a text or two. 

He managed half a smile as he poked at the fire some more and read Nitou’s latest rambly story about how a stray black and white cat had gotten into his last tin of tuna, and he’d nearly thrown a shoe at it but then he’d ended up taking it in and taking it to the vet to get its shots and to get desexed, and now it was living with Wajima and Wajima wasn’t letting him call it Nibbles. 

There was a Skype call a few hours later. How did Gentarou always know when he couldn’t sleep? – it was probably a pretty safe bet, he guessed, yawning. He crawled out of his tent, looked at his phone screen again, looked up at the night sky, then pressed to accept it.

“Hi,” he murmured. 

There was an audible grin, and then another quiet bzzt, bzzt. Haruto sighed and pressed to accept this one, too, and then they were both on his screen. From different places, and different times, and yet there was no lag and the video quality was excellent. 

“Haruto!” 

“Please tell Kengo he deserves more money.” 

* * *

Three nights later, it was bad enough that he felt Dragon swirling uneasily inside him. Haruto didn’t care. He just sat with Koyomi’s ring cradled in his hands, staring unseeing at the darkness of the lake. He’d failed, he’d failed over and over and over. 

Dragon flipped a wing and – and somehow flew away, with the hint of a thought about lions, and Haruto frowned for a moment. Didn’t even know Dragon could do something like that. He returned what could’ve been three minutes or three hours later, furling himself and curling himself down deep inside Haruto.

Then there was a muffled yelp from behind him, like the sound an idiot makes when he trips over a bush. Another yell from another direction, like the sound an idiot cat makes when it hits a tree face first.

Soft footsteps. Two people sitting down on the gravel on either side of him. He felt arms go around him, and then he felt himself begin to shake. 

They sat with him until the sun began to rise, and then they eased him to his feet and pulled him into his little tent. It really wasn’t big enough for three people, but Nitou- Kousuke wrapped his arms around Haruto, and Haruto pressed his face into the side of Kousuke’s neck, and Gentarou wrapped himself around Haruto from behind and pressed his lips to the nape of Haruto’s neck. 

He was safe. Wrapped up in the two of them. 

Safe. 

* * *

It wasn’t that he couldn’t cope. 

It wasn’t that they could stop him from being hurt. 

But they stood with him, and he stood with them. Not alone. Never alone.


End file.
